The 2008 Russia-Georgia War over South Ossetia - the Policy of the Russian Federation and Its Consequences
The 2008 Russia-Georgia War over South Ossetia - the Policy of the Russian Federation and Its Consequences

Summary/Abstract: Determination of the international legal status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two republics that separated from Georgia in early 1990s, gives rise to controversy on three levels. It constitutes, first of all, the conflict between Georgians and titular nations of both provinces, resulting from the clash between the right to territorial integrity of a state with the right to self-determination of nations. Second, it is a major cause of a tough dispute of Georgia with Russia which, for years, in spite of the formal status of peacekeeper, has been truly the patron of the breakaway republics. And third, finally, these unresolved conflicts on the southern side of the Caucasus constitute the subject of a dispute of Russia with Western states, mostly the United States which challenge the concept, promoted by the Kremlin, of the superiority of Russian interests in the post-Soviet area.

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